Background: Adult height has been positively associated with prostate cancer risk.
However, the exposure window of importance is currently unknown and assessments of height during earlier growth periods are scarce. In addition, the association between birth weight and prostate cancer remains undetermined. We assessed these relationships a cohort of the Copenhagen School Health Records Register (CSHRR).
Methods: The CSHRR comprises 372,636 school children. For boys born between the 1930's and 1969, birth weight and annual childhood heights-measured between ages 7 and 13 years-were analyzed in relation to prostate cancer risk. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95 percent confidence intervals (95%CI).
Results: There were 125,211 males for analysis, 2,987 of who were subsequently diagnosed with prostate cancer during 2.57 million person-years of follow-up. Height z-score was significantly associated with prostate cancer risk at all ages (HR~1.13). Height at age 13 years was more important than height change (p=0.024) and height at age 7 years (p=0.024), when estimates from mutually adjusted models were compared. Adjustment of birth weight did not alter estimates ascertained. Birth weight was not associated with prostate cancer risk.
Conclusions: The association between childhood height and prostate cancer risk was driven by height at age 13 years. Impact: Our findings implicate late childhood, adolescence and adulthood growth periods as containing the exposure window(s) of interest that underlies the association between height and prostate cancer. The causal factor may not be singular given the complexity of both human growth and carcinogenesis.
Written by:
Cook MB, Gamborg M, Aarestrup J, Sorensen TI, Baker JL. Are you the author?
National Cancer Institute, Denmark.
Reference: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2013 Oct 2. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-13-0712
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 24089459
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